superbe pro was probably the best you could get out of japan at the time. suntour died for myriad reasons, not the least of which was shimano's groupset-level structuring.by the end of the 80's i think they were too busy trying to keep up with shimano's market saturation to spend time on development.

for a mid 80's bike, i'd pick superbe over dura-ace every time, partly because they were damn good components, and partly because they were (are) the underdogs.

The last time I saw a groupset for sale was on German ebay last year and it sold for around $600 from memory. In bicycle component terms they're as highly regarded as Campagnolo and sometimes just as expensive. I may have asked this same question myself a few years ago because all I've ever known since I started buying real racing bikes in the early eighties was Campagnolo.

So...........if you've got a group set, sell it to Munga and then I'll buy the left overs when my wife's not looking. Or if you haven't.....good hunting with the rest of us.

Prior to 1971 they had 'Maeda', 'Maeda Industries Ltd' or 'Maeda Steel Industries'.

From '71 they had a 2 letter serial stamped on them- N was 1971, O was '72, etc through to '83 which was Z, '84 they went back to the start of the English alphabet ie '84 is A, '85 is B, etc.

The second letter is supposed to be the month (or maybe the model), I'm not sure of which.

Suntour & Shimano were fighting over dominance of the component market, from the 70's until mid/late 80's Suntour were just that little bit better than the Shimano stuff (IMHO, but mostly that's also what I've read as well), they spurred each other on & left all the European component manufacturers in their wake, to such an extent that virtually all bar one went out of business.

In the end Shimano improved to such an extent that their components were superior to the Suntour stuff, it was then that Suntour stopped trying to compete, these days they just make a spread of mountain bike components, they've left all the rest to Shimano & others.

What we got was a bunch of really great Suntour gear from the 70's through to the mid/late 80's, then Shimano took over the mantle with some equally great gear.

What is a Suntour gruppo worth? Whatever the market will bear, at present the Suntour stuff goes for nearly as much as the early Campy items (my opinion is that the Campy stuff is way over priced but everybody is really into this L' eroica thing), really good NOS Suntour gruppo can leave you very little change from US$1000.

munga's probably right in his assumptions, but I'll talk about SunTour with a lamp-post. ... a true tragic.

So, cracka, FWIW. SunTour was for a time, arguably, making the best there was. Overseen by an owner, with a brilliant designer beneath him, (they guarded his slant-parallelogram design with a big club behind their backs for 20 years until '84).Shimano? Clever company, with good succession to the sons, and forward-thinking corporate organisation, which SunTour seemingly lacked, in the long run.

Plenty of research material out there, especially the disrealigears as previously mentioned.

Wal42 wrote: What is a Suntour gruppo worth? Whatever the market will bear, at present the Suntour stuff goes for nearly as much as the early Campy items (my opinion is that the Campy stuff is way over priced but everybody is really into this L' eroica thing), really good NOS Suntour gruppo can leave you very little change from US$1000.

Wow! I'm going to put a bigger lock on my shed!I used to buy and fit SunTour from Hantrade who imported it into Oz in the 90's. Main problem Suntour had was they got left behind in the indexing wars (just like Campy) and had neither the industrial muscle of Shimano to make the changes quickly and get it right or the legend status of Campag which allowed a lot of folk to ignore the fact that their stuff was pretty but crap compared to Shimano well up into the next century.

IMHO Suntour made the best non-indexed racing and touring gears ever at highly affordable prices Too affordable maybe, the equipment snobs tended to look down on 'cheap Jap Crap' and take a mortgage to buy Campag stuff that cost four times as much, didn't work as well and was heavier. I had not a lot of luck with their early indexing (which was incompatible with Shimano/Campag etc) but others have had better experiences. The later 7/8 speed indexed stuff worked fine but it was too late for the company by then.They also made strong, durable 2-pawl freewheels which could stand up to tandem loads, Shimano freewheels were single pawl and frequently ripped apart on a tandem. Campag made a marvelous 3-pawl unit for a while - if you find one let me know CheersRichard

Munga first post is out of line! I'm looking to buy a nice groupset then build a bike around it. I have a bike with Dura Ace 7700 which is great on my original race bike. Now looking to do somthing different that's not as common. Plus I don't sell bikes I just get new ones. Thanks again I'm off to buy a groupset

Munga first post is out of line! I'm looking to buy a nice groupset then build a bike around it. I have a bike with Dura Ace 7700 which is great on my original race bike. Now looking to do somthing different that's not as common. Plus I don't sell bikes I just get new ones. Thanks again I'm off to buy a groupset

Cracka

OMGosh, you'll fit in here... And apologies for thinking munga may have been right.

These guys in the wilds of Utah, are pretty good, and not OTT on pricing.

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